Daily Log

Came down at 10:45. Dog fed. I was uncertain of the day yesterday, but today is Monday. I need to wrap up and post my Loose Tabs piece to Substack. Figure out the Wednesday menu, and go shopping for it. Ok, here's the menu:

• Fried round steak with mushroom gravy: chicken-fried, then baked in the gravy, basically Campbell's soup mix
• Spanish roasted potatoes: just sliced thin and roasted, with olive oil and garlic
• Maque choux: creamed corn with some onion and bell pepper
• Fried cabbage with bacon
• Mariscada in almond sauce (green sauce minus parsley): shrimp, scallops, clams, lobster tails (maybe crawfish?)
• Peach and burrata salad: with prosciutto
• Olive, onion, and orange salad
• Spice cake: with ice cream
• Chocolate pecan pie (optional)

Brenda's request was for "good old Southern food." Brenda likes seafood. Rhonda doesn't, and doesn't like to eat anything green. The steak is a Mom dish, so I think that counts. I couldn't find a seafood dish that really worked. Most, like etouffee, go with rice. Blackened fish was a possibility (redfish is classic; I've done snapper, and found a salmon recipe). Gumbo gets into soup, as does European alternatives like cioppino or bouillabaisse, which could be single-dish meals (perhaps with paella, but we'd be moving far from the Southern theme). The Spanish dish is an open-ended collection of shellfish (my recipe is just for clams, as a tapas), with a thick sauce, which goes well with the Spanish potatoes. I had wanted potatoes with the meat, so my first idea was dauphinois. The cream works well with the meat, but not so well with the seafood. The Spanish recipe should work with both, and is easier.

I made the steak, dauphinois, corn, and green beans for Steve, and that turned out very well. But the beans are, well, green, so I thought the cabbage might work just as well. Both, after all, are vehicles for bacon. I'm thinking of adding some sausage as well. In the meal for Steve, I also made horiatiki salad and baked beans. Both seem unnecessary here. I have a new Southern cookbook, and the peaches-burrata salad came from there. Seems more Italian to me, but I can point to the book. I think I can cut a corner using canned peaches (and I'm likely to prefer them). Google tells me that burrata is available at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. I have a Spanish recipe for the olive-onion-orange salad, but I prefer a Turkish one, with dry-cured black olives (so no green). Two fruit salads is an unusual move for me, but these should taste distinctly, from each other and everything else.

Sticking with the spice cake for dessert. But if I have time Tuesday evening, I may throw in a pie. (Key lime also occurs to me, but that's getting excessive. I did strawberry shortcake for Steve, which is a favorite. Bread pudding with whiskey sauce is another idea. I also thought about doing a peach cobbler. And/or the oatmeal stout cake.) Also thinking about cornbread, including a recipe that calls for some sweet potato.

I'll go shopping late afternoon or early evening. I think I will hit the Central/Rock Dillons first, then Whole Foods, then Trader Joe's (if needed). Meanwhile, it's 1:18 and I haven't gotten back to the Substack piece.

Email (19 messages):

Daily Log

Posted Loose Tabs yesterday. Plan is to write a Substack post based on it today. Woke up from a dream around 7. Went back to bed, got up after 10, came down at 11. Talked to Brenda last night. She has other arrangements for Monday, but will come here Tuesday after their tour of Max's farm. I'll cook dinner on Wednesday. Brenda asked for "good old Southern cooking," so that I can do. Brenda likes seafood, but Rhonda doesn't. I think I'll do the steak with mushroom gravy, and the dauphinois, for the meat & potatoes side. Not sure what I'll do on the seafood side, but I should be able to find something. I'm thinking spice cake for dessert. I've been wanting to do that, and it's super easy. Not sure what the Tuesday schedule will be, so I'll keep that open. Probably shop on Monday.

Email (12 messages):

• Ken Brown tells me that his wife's sister, Carolyn, died on Friday, so he'll be going to funeral on Thursday, making it impossible to come visit.
• Semipop Life
• Letter from Kissa Kissa ("the jazz listening bar my wife and I run in Brooklyn"), asking permission to use my grades and reviews for a reference website on jazz lps. Of course, I'll say yes.
• Michael Steinman: Armchair critics, angry purists, and other garden pests, with music from 1958. Music in question is Chuck Berry playing "Sweet Little Sixteen" at Newport Jazz Festival, where Jo Jones is the drummer, and looks like Rudy Rutherford is the clarinetist (not a name I was familiar with, but he played with Basie and Jacquet in the 1950s, mostly on baritone sax).
• Substack: Music Week (7:5): +1 like; also +1 like for Famous Death Dwarves.
• Cadence is pushing a quarterly subscription. Sounds like the weekly newsletter discontinues for non-subscribers.

Started working on a new Substack post, based on yesterday's Loose Tabs.

Daily Log

I can't believe it's August already. I guess my calculation that the mid-year jazz critics poll would kill off the first half of the summer was an underestimate, now that we're two-thirds done. Grass is starting to turn yellow. I'm writing this before going to bed, as I updated software and rebooted. Now I have to reorganize my windows, get Firefox restarted, etc. All in all, a fairly productive day yesterday, posting Music Week both on Substack and on my blog.

Got up after 10, and came down before 11. Reached page 150 in The God Test. Next chapter is "AI Heaven and AI Hell." Main insight I've had from the last few pages is that the tendency of humans to anthropomorphize AI is strong. That's probably because they've never encountered such things except in human form. Wright talks about humans creating AI gods in their own image. Isn't that aspiration to become godlike itself a problem? Second point is that I've long thought that everyone needs their own social worker. The world is complicated, and navigating it is difficult. One needs help. AI could be that help. I doubt it's possible to eliminate the need for human backstop, much as I doubt it's possible for AI to automate all work away. I doubt that's even desirable. But perhaps it could eliminate the imagined need to keep a servent class to cater to the aristocracy.

Email (12 messages, some left over):

• Vox closed my support ticket. No additional 40% discount, but try again next year.
• Christian Iszchak: An Acute Case: 01 August 2026
• Substack daily stats: Music Week (7:5): 7 likes, 2 free subs, 109 email views, 36 other views. Since then: +2 subscribers.

Preliminary thinking on Wednesday menu. I'm basically looking at a "surf and turf" combination. For the turf side, I'm thinking (similar to a Nov. 2024 meal I fixed for Steve):

• Fried steak with mushroom gravy
• Potatoes dauphinois
• Maque choux (cajun creamed corn)
• Fried cabbage with bacon

The Steve meal also had baked beans, green beans, and horiatiki, but not the cabbage. Rhonda has a thing about green food.

Surf side is harder to figure. I have scallops in freezer, as well as a fair amount of fish. Shrimp is easy to pick up. I've mostly been looking at things like etouffee or scampi, or maybe gumbo, but it occurs to me that I could to a mariscada in almond sauce (possibly omitting the parsley that turns it into a green sauce). While the recipe calls for clams, I could include both shrimp and scallops, and lobster if I can find it (it's usually possible to find tails). That makes me wonder if I shouldn't switch the potatoes over to the Spanish slice/roast recipe, which would go well with both main dishes. I need to let this simmer in my brain a bit more.

Dessert is still likely to be spice cake.

Loose Tabs

Pick up text here.

Daily Log

Woke up at 7-something. Read a bit, then slept some more. Came down around 11:30. Did the cutover last night for Music Week. Started to write a bit of introduction, but didn't get far, nor did I pick out the albums. I was sufficiently impressed by the Laurie Anderson to order a copy. Waiting for a bunch of Amazon deliveries, on some kind of schedule that only makes sense to them, but should catch up on Saturday. I installed the new gas regulator on the grill yesterday. Despite how confused I was while looking at Amazon, it looks like they all have the same connectors, so any replacement part would have worked. I payed twice as much at Ace as I would have at Amazon. The grill itself was filthy after Matt's cookout. The grates were ok, but there was a lot of gunk underneath the burners. I scraped out the worst, but didn't attempt a serious cleaning. Nor did I test for gas leaks, although everything is pretty tight.

Looks like Brenda will stay with us when the Arkansas folks come up for Max Brown's auction, so Monday through Thursday nights, with Wednesday the big dinner date. They'll do a walkthrough on Tuesday, and the auction is Thursday, both of which we can skip. Rhonda and Jim are staying at the casino south of town. Richard is coming up Wednesday, and possibly leaving after Thursday. Don't know about Tammy. We'll talk more today and/or tomorrow and figure that out.

First thing today will be to send out the Substack version of Music Week. After that, update the blog. I have quite a bit of Loose Tabs ready, so that should go out this weekend. I'm thinking I'll write up an "executive summary" for Substack. Need to get back to the jazz poll website and fill in some more year links. Starting a new jigsaw puzzle: lots of sand, some pyramids, some sky. I'm sorting out the sky first. About 1/3 of the way through Robert Wright. One thing that's hard for me to imagine is the conversational aspect of the chatbots. I thought about publishing yesterday's notes, but in the end didn't (at least for now).

Email (40 messages):

• Cadence: feature interview with Justin Chart by Charles Mobley.
• Whitewashed History: live with Derek Beres.
• Substack: Music Week (7:5) is out now; 7 likes; +2 subscriber (Ken Tucker, RiotRiot); the latter liked 4 old Music Week posts; also +1 like for Famous Death Dwarves.

Music Week

Expanded blog post, July archive (finished).

Tweet: Music Week: 34 albums, 6 A-list

Music: Current count 46366 [46332] rated (+34), 11 [14] unrated (-3).

New records reviewed this week:

• A-F-R-O & Motion Plus: Frequencies (2026, Fro Thizzle Productions): [bc]: B+(***)
• Akhavelli: Moorthodox Psyence (2026, Below System): [bc]: B+(***)
• Ishmael Ali: Burn the Plastic, Sell the Copper (2023-25 [2026], Amalgam): [bc]: B+(***)
• Laurie Anderson With Sexmob: Let X = X (2023 [2026], Nonesuch): [sp]: A
• Nia Archives: Emotional Junglist (2026, Hijinxx/Island): [sp]: A-
• Charli XCX: Music, Fashion, Film (2026, Atlantic): [sp]: B+(***)
• Christopher Dammann: Dead Words (2025 [2026], Shifting Paradigm): [sp]: B+(***)
• Eliane Elias: Ao Vivo (2023 [2026], Candid): [sp]: B+(**)
• Andy Emler/Claude Tchamitchian/Eric Echampard: There Is Another Way (2025 [2026], La Buisonne): [bc]: B+(**)
• Jimmy Farace: Big Shoulders, Big Sounds (2026, Shifting Paradigm): [sp]: B+(**)
• Kelly Green: Eat Your Greens! (2026, Green Soul): [cd]: B+(**) [08-28]
• Elias Haslanger: Legacy (2025 [2026], Bandstand Presents): [sp]: B+(*)
• Illit: Mamihlapinatapai (2026, Belift Lab, EP): [sp]: B+(*)
• Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves: Bury Deep My Heart (2026, Carrier): [cd]: B+(***)
• David Maranha/Rodrigo Amado: Desolation Row (2025 [2026], Comets Coming): [bc]: A-
• Rico Nasty: RX (2026, Sugar Trap, EP): [sp]: B+(**)
• Jenny Reynolds: Willow & Stone (2026, self-released): [sp]: B+(**)
• Tom Ricci: Happening in Buenos Aires: Live at Borges 1975 (2023 [2026], self-released): [cd]: B+(**)
• David G Smith: Hero Street (2026, Hey Dave): [sp]: B+(***)
• Clark Sommers: WaBaSH (2025 [2026], Calligram): [cd]: B+(***) [08-07]
• Swamp Dogg: Swamp Dogg Contemplates the Afterlife (2026, S-Curve): [sp]: A
• The Westerlies: Have You Heard? The Music of Bill Frisell, Vol. 1 (2020-24 [2026], Westerlies): [sp]: B+(**)
• Earl "Guitar" Williams: The Soul King of Bessemer, AL (2025 [2026], Music Maker): [sp]: B+(**)
• Otomo Yoshihide/Kei Matsumaru: Shutsumin (2024 [2026], Trost): [bc]: B-
• Tucker Zimmerman: Dream Me a Dream (2026, Big Potato): [sp]: B+(***)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• Charles Lloyd: Sangam & Friends (2009 [2026], Blue Note): [sp]: B+(***)
• Shūdan Sokai: Live at Hachioji Alone (1976 [2026], Aguirre): [sp]: A-
• Sun Ra Arkestra: Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Live at the Bluebird Cafe, Bloomington, Indiana (1977 [2026], Strut): [sp]: B+(*)

Old music:

• Plas Johnson: This Must Be the Plas! (1959, Capitol): [sp]: B+(**)
• Plas Johnson: Bop Me Daddy (1956, Tampa, EP): [sp]: B+(*)
• Plas Johnson/Red Holloway: Keep That Groove Going (2001, Milestone): [sp]: B+(**)
• Mary Lee Kortes: Will Anybody Know That I Was Here? The Songs of Beulah Rowley (2016 [2023], Lakeside Lounge): [sp]: A-
• Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves: A Love on My Mind (2008, Carrier, EP): [bc]: B+(*)
• Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves: The Best of Your Lies (2018, Carrier): [bc]: B+(**)
• Dana Maragos: Unimaginable Things (2024, self-released): [sp]: B+(***)
• Dana Maragos: October (2020, self-released): [sp]: B+(***)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Mike Jones: Mike Jones With Strings (Capri) [08-21]

Daily Log

Came down at 11:45, after reading in The God Test, approaching page 100, some stuff about "doomer AI." My own view, at least so far, is that AI will accelerate trends that already exist, including flaws in how the world is organized. Granted that some of these flaws had already been accelerated due to previous technological waves, going back (at least) to steam power, but most obviously since electricity provided a route for miniaturization and acceleration of computing. I also understand that stress causes fissures to crack catastrophically, so I don't doubt that we're in for some of that. But doom is going way too far. Pain and suffering, for sure, and also for sure, needlessly.

But we should take care to distinguish between two functions of AI: one is the gathering and availability of intelligence (or information plus the logic to make use of it); the other is the temptation to surrender automatic control over operations to machines. The former is useful, because no one has ever known enough before making decisions. The latter is dangerous, because machines also don't know enough, and their directives may be aligned contrary to our interests. ("Our" is an especially weak link here, as long as we are divided by interests, which of course we are, often extremely.)

Automated controls aren't unprecedented. We've been using them for at least a century, most extensively in factories, but they are in every home and every car. And people who depend on them know full well that they could be improved, especially by adding more compute power: the ability to collect more information, and to better model how the control should behave in response to its inputs.

As far as I can tell, at this point that's all AI can do: provide more information, and model it in sometimes surprisingly sophisticated ways. Sure, AI engineers have dabbled in "goal-oriented" programming, where a program is given a set of if/else rules, including some that may create additional if/else rules, and asked to devise a solution to something that it was not specifically programmed to do. What's new with AI is the mind-boggling amount of data the programs can draw inferences from, which can only be handled by using rules that are essentially statistical. As such, we're moving from deterministic machines, which in principle can be fully understood, to stochastic machines, which can at best be approximated. Thus, for instance, we speak of "adding guardrails," an admission that no fix is possible.

That's probably enough for now. Actually, too much, as I started thinking about posting some of the above, which only baited me to write more, sidetracking my whole day.

Email (36 messages):

• Substack: daily stats for Famous Death Dwarves: 1 like, 1 restack, 114 email views, 27 other views. Not very good.
• Tom Engelhardt: How Donald Trump Helped My Life: A Thank You to the Ransacker-in-Chief.
• Tom Carson: Odyssey, Ody-Do.

Daily Log

Woke up after 11, with more than 7 hours of sleep. Read some, and came down at noon. Weighed myself at 230.0, a new high after my drop, but only 0.1 above 3-4 days ago. Seems like it shouldn't be impossible to turn this around. I posted a piece on Lindsey Graham last night, calling it Famous Death Dwarves. Shortened from a Lester Bangs title, Let Us Now Praise Famous Death Dwarves. That was my first thought, but Substack seems to prefer shorter titles. Most of the text was scraped from Loose Tabs work, to which I added three paragraphs of intro. I also included Trita Parsi on Zelensky's attempt to jump into the Iran war. Graham was in Ukraine just before this happened. Zelensky's been desperate to get Trump back on his side, so the chances are that Graham offered him a way are very high. Chances that Netanyahu was also in on the deal are also pretty high. I need to explore this further. I have little doubt that when I finally publish Loose Tabs, there will be more to the story.

I finally got the regulator hose detached from the gas grill manifold. I want to make sure that the replacement part will fit. Everything I see describes the fitting as a 3/8-inch female connector. But I had to use a 3/4-inch wrench to loosen the fitting. I'm pretty sure the fitting is standardized, and any replacement regulator will do, but I may wind up going to Ace to see for myself. Still having some confusion on the grill model, and compatibility lists are difficult. Laura has an appointment today for some testing, so I won't be able to go out until she gets back. Meanwhile, more Loose Tabs.

Email (30 messages):

• My "Famous Death Dwarves" piece; shareable assets; 1 like.
• RiotRiot: Takes by the Ocean: some fresh meat. I was surprised at how little I had not heard from his mid-year top-40, and how little interest I had in hearing the rest (mostly K-pop EPs).
• Thank you note from Ralph Miriello for the poll: "A wonderful poll that features the diversity and proficiency of the current state of jazz music."
• TomDispatch: Tom Engelhardt & Nick Turse: Donald Trump and Wars of Choice.
• Substack: Interview with Taylor Lorenz on using AI tools. First sobering point was his answer to "how much do you spend on AI tools every month?" "Probably about $300 a month." He's using at least five models (Claude, Gemini, Grok. DeepSeek, ChatGPT), plus other tools. I'm contemplating spending on some, but nothing like that. There's a pretty detailed outline here on how he works to prepare a podcast or a video, which involve a lot of steps I'm not much intrerested in. Still, one step I'm curious about is: "Paste what I've gathered into Claude and askit to organize the information." For the Graham piece, I had about 10 bullet items, each derived from a specific article. Can I feed that in and get a single coherent article back out? It wouldn't have to be ready to go. Just get me over the hump of reorganization.
• Tom Carson: Frankenride 9: "The return of Bob Dole, . . ." What is his thing with Dole? Paywalled, so I won't bother.
• Lydia Liebman: Peace Anthems is coming out. I requested a promo.

Notes on Democratic primary candidates (* ones I have heard of):

• US Senate (against Roger Marshall):
  • Damon Anderson, Christy Davis+, Adam Hamilton*, Jason Hart, Kevin Latz, Erik Murray*, Sandy Spidel Neumann, Anne Parelkar, Patrick Schmidt, Michael Soetaert, Noah Taylor+.
  • NYT polling has Hamilton 30%, Davis 13%. One general election poll shows Hamilton over Marshall 51-49%. Other favor Marshall by up to 10% (55-45% over Taylor).
• US House (against Ron Estes):
  • Chris Carmichael*, Ryan Gilbert (suspended), Katy Tyndell*.
• Governor (open seat):
  • Ethan Corson, Cindy Holscher*, Curt Skoog.

According to Ballotpedia, Sedgwick County is 54.4% R, 36.3% D. Harvey County is 58.1% R, Reno 63.2% R, Butler 69% R, Kingman 75.9 R, Sumner 71.8% R, Harper 77.4% R, Cowley 65.5% R, Chautauqua 83.5% R, Montgomery 72.3% R, Crawford 57.9% R. Note that Riley, Shawnee, and Johnson counties voted for Trump in 2016, but switch to Biden in 2020, and stayed with Harris in 2024.

Daily Log

Woke up at 9, 90 on the meter. Reading Robert Wright explaining how LLMs work. I've read better explanations. His framing argument is that we should all be in awe of what AI can do. I've found little so far to be awestruck by. Rather, what I'm finding is that the more I understand of how AI works, the more I find fault with human reason. I've known for some time that I basically think in terms of models. So here I am, adding neural nets to my repertoire of models. And sure, they help to explain lots of things, but they're mostly faults.

Only worked on Loose Tabs yesterday. Currently 149 links, 7640 words. No real pressure to do anything this week. I should get back to the jazz poll web site, as there is easy progress to be had there. Woke up thinking about memoir today; specifically, Varityper years. Don't know when/if I'll follow up on that. I did manage to put the garbage out last night, so last week's failure will be erased. Yesterday hit 104F, maybe more. Walked the dog briefly after sunset, when it was down to 94F.

Email (21 messages at 10 AM):

• Tom Engelhardt: The (Dis)United States (Or Do I Mean World?) of President Donald J. Trump: Global Warming, Global Warning.
• Craft Recordings announces its Moodsville Acoustic Sounds Series: "Debut releases spotlight classic titles from Coleman Hawkins, the Frank West Quartet, and the Red Garland Trio with Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis."
• Amazon: I ordered a book (Yakov Rabkin, What Is Modern Israel?), a CD (Swamp Dogg Contemplates the Afterlife), and replacement Winix air filters.
• Nick Loss-Eaton offered to send CDs of Gearbox albums: Ella Fitzgerald, Franklin Kiermyer. I said sure.

I finally pulled the Lindsey Graham section out of Loose Tabs, and put it into a NOEL file. Link for published article is here.

Finally took a look at Dan Weiss' mid-year report. Using it as a checklist:

1. Kehlani: Kehlani (Atlantic [**]
2. Feeble Little Horse: Bitknot (Saddle Creek) [**]
3. Jill Scott: To Whom It May Concern (Human Re Sources/Blues Babe) [***]
4. Twisted Teens: Blame the Clown (Jazz Life) [**]
5. Carsie Blanton & the Burning Hell: Everything Is Great! (self-released) [A]
6. Boards of Canada: Inferno (Music 70/Warp) [**]
7. Emperor X: Unified Field (Bar/None) [**]
8. Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon: As of Now (Lex) [A-]
9. Robyn: Sexistential (Konichiwa/Young) [A-]
10. Joyce Manor: I Used to Go to This Bar (Epitaph -EP) [*]
11. Tierra Whack: Whack's Museum (Interscope) [***]
12. Effie: Pullup to Busan 4 More Hyper Summer It's Gonna Be a Fuckin Movie (Sound Republica -EP '25) [B]
13. The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis: Deface the Currency (Impulse!) [**]
14. Roc Marciano: 656 (self-released) [**]
15. Illit: Mamihlapinatapai (Belift Lab -EP) []
16. The Cucumbers: As You Heard Me: Songs From "Hello George" (self-relesed) [A-]
17. The Paranoid Style: Known Associates (Bar/None) [A-]
18. Black Nile: Indigo Garden (Hen House Studios) [***]
19. Itzy: Motto (JYP Entertainment -EP) []
20. Girl Scout: Brink (Human Garbage) [*]
21. Aesop Rock & Homeboy Sandman: Miami Lice: Season Four (Rhymesayers Entertainment) [***]
22. Gogol Bordello: We Mean It, Man! (Casa Gogol) [A-]
23. Hemlocke Springs: The Apple Tree Under the Sea (AWAL) [***]
24. Pony: Clearly Cursed (Take This to Heart) [**]
25. Kim Gordon: Play Me (Matador) [***]
26. B0YG1RL & Novagang: Exit 2B (Surf Gang) []
27. Olivia Rodrigo: You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love (Geffen) [A-]
28. Butthole Surfers: After the Astronaut (Sunset Blvd) []
29. Megan Moroney: Cloud 9 (Columbia Nashville) [***]
30. Angine De Poitrine: Vol. II (Spectacles Bonzaï) [***]
31. Zach Bryan: With Heaven on Top (Belting Bronco/Warner) [A-]
32. Buck 65: Do Not Bend (Handsmade) [A-]
33. Al Green: To Love Somebody (Fat Possum -EP) [**]
34. Robber Robber: Two Wheels Move the Soul (Fire Talk) []
35. GENA: The Pleasure Is Yours (Lex) []
36. Dry Cleaning: Secret Love (4AD) [***]
37. Olof Dreijer: Loud Bloom (Dh2) [A-]
38. The New Pornographers: The Former Site Of (Merge) [**]
39. NMIXX: Heavy Serenade (JYP Entertainment -EP) []
40. Bill Orcutt: Music in Continuous Motion (Palilalia) [**]

Daily Log

Got up once, but went back to sleep, and slept until 11. Starting to read Robert Wright's The God Test. Came down at noon. 95F. Didn't get much done yesterday. I'm going to have to carve out some time for working on jazz poll website to get a sense of having gotten anything accomplished. Loose Tabs is going nowhere (although I did start my rant on Lindsey Graham).

Email (24 messages):

• Substack: +1 like; +2 subscribers.
• Responses to my letter on the Max Brown auction: Steve Hull, Ken Brown, Jane Burns ("I'm too old to buy anything").
• Robert Wright: Trump and the AI rational actor problem: A new theory about why foreign policy elites aren't worried enough.

Daily Log

Sleep meter: 95. Came down about 10AM. Was 89F at the time, which made me think today might be cooler. Next time I looked, it was 90F. Not sure if it hit 100F yesterday, but it came very close. When I walked the dog at 8:30, it was still 94F, and not a dry heat. I started work on Loose Tabs yesterday. Took a good look at Mondoweiss, but that was as far as I got. In the evening, I decided to try my hand at modifying the jazz poll website. Basic idea was to do a table with two columns: left is the calendar year in big print, latest first, which would link to the annual poll directory (or mid-year if no annual available yet); right is subheds for annual (and mid-year, where available), and under each direct links to the essays, totals, voter lists, etc. I got the framework working last night, and populated the right column with 2026 mid-year links. I edited the banner a bit, and inserted a news section between the banner and the annual poll table. The news section can use some more work. I moved all the old crap to the bottom. The section on Francis Davis should go into its own file. The other links/notices should be folded into the new table. I went ahead and updated the website, because even incomplete, this one sucks much less than the old one.

This went slowly last night, because I'm still at the stage where I have to look up every little detail. For instance, how do I define an array, pass it to a function, and iterate through it inside that function? I used to know things like that, but I don't remember it with the necessary precision. I've also learned a few things. I've long wanted to be able to specify CSS in the same file I'm using it from, but the limitation that it should be in the head section caused problems. I just figured out that I could put the CSS in a PHP heredoc to initialize a string, then pass that to my commonHeader function. I also discovered some things about CSS selectors I didn't know before. I'll fiddle with the website some more, but will probably work more on Loose Tabs today.

Email (? messages):

• Nice letter from Rob Hoff about trying to program jazz radio around the poll choices. Evidently our picks are not very popular.
• Project Syndicate: Why Iran Won't Change (Pegah Banihashemi); AI Will Supercharge Surveillance Capitalism (Courtney C Radsch).
• Substack: +1 like; +2 subscribers.
• Daily stats for Music Week (7:4): 5 likes, 3 restacks, 1 whatever that is, 1 sub, 116 email views, 36 other views.
• Nice letter from Phil Overeem on poll, etc.

I got a call yesterday from Rhonda Pyeatt. They're coming up around Aug. 4-6, when there will be an auction of Max Brown's estate (not the land or buildings, but all the stuff; I think he got rid of his cattle when he moved to the home in Derby, or possibly earlier). Further mail says she will arrive Monday, August 3, staying at "Hampton at the casino," checking out Friday, August 7.

I've found links to the auction:

• Auction Location: 7805 SW 200th St, Douglass [08-06]
• 351 acres near Douglass, selling in 4 tracts [09-01]
• Tract 1: 7805 SW 200th St, Douglass - stone house, shop & barn on 5+ acres [09-01]
• Tract 2: 66+ acres pasture & pond NE of Douglass [09-01]
• Tract 3: 120+ acres pasture & pond NE of Douglass [09-01]
• Track 4: 160+ acres pasture & pond E of Douglass [09-01]

From the description of the house:

Stone house, shop and barn on 5+- acres northeast of Douglass in Butler County, Kansas. This attractive rural property combines the use functionality you would expect out of a rural property with peaceful and scenic views. Just one-half mile off blacktop HWY 77, this property has good quick easy access to surrounding towns and amenities.

The solid stone home built in 1984 features a comfortable and functional layout with 1530 finished square feet on the main floor, plus a finished basement. Main floor features with a primary bedroom, living room w/ fireplace, kitchen, bathroom and laundry. The finished basement includes two non-conforming bedrooms, living area bathroom & bar!

A standout feature is the modern shop, complete with utilities and a concrete floor, making it ideal for projects, tools and equipment storage. Adding to the property's character is a vintage barn that reflects the area's agricultural heritage and offers additional storage or livestock potential.

The house was built by Max and Doris. I'm not sure how much, if anything, they subcontracted. Max's father, my Uncle Ted Brown, built a similar (but somewhat smaller) stone house in Arkansas. The first link has extensive photos of the personal property in the house/shed/barn.

Daily Log

Came down shortly before 11. Dog came with, perhaps hoping for a second breakfast. (Laura usually feeds him around 9. She's up and down, and that's about when he gets pushy.) Nearing the end of I Am Not a Robot, with sections on using AI as a personal companion (lover? therapist?) holding little interest for me. More unsettling is the bit on some machine that scans your iris to identify you as human, then converts that information into a crypto key that acts as a passport to some future human-exclusive view of the internet. And this information is going to be turned into power by some corporation with first-mover advantage?

Last night, I sent Music Week (7:4) to the Substack list, and I posted full Music Week on the blog. Ready to start another week. Main thing today will be to set up a Loose Tabs file, and start shoveling shit into it. I think I already have a Books file set up (maybe two, but I haven't been working on it/them).

My books came today:

• Hussein Agha/Robert Malley: Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine
• Sheldon Simeon with Garrett Snyder: Cook Real Hawai'i: A Cookbook
• Al Sweigart: Automate the Boring Stsuff With Python (3rd edition)

I've had three books checked out from the library for the past six weeks. I had to take them back, but wasn't done, hence the order. I read the Agha/Malley book, and want to write up a couple more Substack posts based on quotes. I haven't had a chance to cook from Real Hawai'i, but want to. The other book was the "For Dummies" book on Python automation. I've long been a big fan of script languages, and still do a lot with awk (in shell scripts, from Makefiles, like I learned to do in the 1980s). I recently wrote one called mkeval.sh, which calculates a bunch of statistics from the jazz poll data files. Aside from PHP for websites, the big three are Perl, Python, and Ruby. (I've also worked in TCL/TK, but haven't heard anything about it in ages.) I wrote my own language, Ftwalk/Hawk, but I haven't worked on it since the 1990s, so consider it obsolete. Perhaps because of this, I've always disliked Perl, and never been very happy with the others. However, Python seems to be the most tolerable and generally useful. The utility of these languages depends not on the elegance of the language but on the libraries, especially those that give you access to more complex file formats (like something that can read your inbox, or collect and parse web files). Also, AI is reputedly very good at writing Python scripts, so it should be easy to get off the ground with something more useful than "hello world."

I didn't find anything at the library new and topical that I wanted to read, so I went up to the tech section, and picked out:

• Chris Minnick et al.: Artificial Intelligence All-in-One for Dummies: I have no intention of reading this, but I want to start testing some AI tools, so I figured I might use this as a reference and guide, both to what to test and what to try.
• Chris Barr et al.: The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing and Creating Content for the Digital World: Another reference book. This was (c) 2010, so predates AI, but covers blogging, newsletters, email, SEO, etc. Some of it is just a grammar guide (e.g., whole sections on how to use punctuation). I may never open it again, but it looked more useful than anything else I saw there (including Henry Kissinger's book on AI futures).

Email (23 messages):

• Music Week (7:4): shareable assets (this includes some images I forgot to include in the initial mailing); 5 likes.
• Warming Up a Riff: daily stats: 6 likes, 2 restacks, 1 sub, 109 email views, 40 other.
• Other Substack stuff: 4 new subscribers (SHEER Magazine, DJpeterDE [Jazz Radio! WFMU, WVUD, mixcloud], jjonrook, Tom Sperduto).
• TomDispatch: Nick Turse: Pete Hegseth's Crisis of Masculinity
• Tom Carson: Chuckles Bites the Dust: What will Europe do without Americans? Oh, they'll be just fine. Can't say more, as now he's back behind the paywall.

I emptied out the "tabs" scratch file, moving what I've accumulated so far to this blog temp file.

Daily Log

Woke up early. Pushed my Substack piece out late last night. I was disappointed to find a large chunk of my "Warming Up a Riff" article excised at Arts Fuse. Not sure whether I should complain. I probably need to compare all of the articles to figure out what exactly happened. I didn't really wind up the Substack post as neatly as I had hoped, but at least it does the job of alerting my subscribers to the poll's existence. Library books are due today, so returning them will be an errand. I ordered the Agha/Malley book from Amazon. I had wanted to post more quotes from the book, but was running out of time. Very good book. Worth owning.

I also ordered Cook Real Hawai'i, which isn't due yet, but looks like a pretty definitive guide to Hawaiian cuisine. I still hope to make a big dinner out of it, but no time soon. Among other things, note many grilled dishes. I need a new gas regulator on the grill. The old one is not only aggravating with its safety trips, it's actually developed a leak. Matt said he had cleaned it up well after cooking, but I have my doubts. I could very well decide I'm done with grilling.

I also ordered a Python automation book: not the For Dummies book I have checked out (due today), but a similar one from No Starch Press, which for some reason I find more trustworthy. I'm hoping that I can get AI to write some programs to scan through website data, which I can further tweak. At the end of the AI reading, I expect to sign up for one or more LLMs, and start using it for research and organization.

Weighed myself, at 229.0. Several mega-cooking projects have taken a toll. I need to get that done. I also need to set up an appointment with Boxberger. I have appointments with Eldika and Tibbe in August.

First thing today is Music Week, with the Substack version coming out first, and the blog version later. I also would like to lay out one of the Agha/Malley Substack posts, but that could wait.

Email (58 messages at 1:12 PM):

• My Substack piece: Warming Up a Riff: Shareable assets; 6 likes; 3 new subscribers (Martin Johnson).
• Pete Butchers: "An interesting (but not novel) observation is how the listing is dominated by US musicians and bands. Needless to say the same applies to many other US polls (eg Downbeat)." He's asking why. I could write something about that.
• William Marx mentioned me in 3 Substack notes.
• Matthieu Jouan wrote a notice about the poll in Citizen Jazz.
• How writers are reacting to Substack's AI transparency tools
• GoDaddy: Hullworks.net set to auto-renew on 8/23, 2 years, $49.98. Prices keep going up, even for nothing.

I'm not going to try to catch all the references to the poll I'm seeing. But I ran across Meta AI offering to answer a question, "What sparked this jazz poll?" Its answer:

Tom Hull was inspired to start the mid-year jazz poll after noticing how few jazz releases were mentioned in other mid-year best-of lists. He decided to create his own poll to highlight the wealth of great jazz music being produced. This initiative was also a tribute to Francis Davis, who had run the Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll for 19 years before his passing.

That's not wrong, but isn't really structured right, so it leaves several false impressions. This is, for instance, the 3rd Mid-Year poll. The initiative wasn't a tribute. This was Francis's poll. It is only continuing as a tribute to him.

Music Week

Expanded blog post, July archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 33 albums, 5 A-list

Music: Current count 46332 [46299] rated (+33), 14 [10] unrated (+4).

New records reviewed this week:

• Yazz Ahmed: Shinrin-Yoku (2026, Night Time Stories, EP): [sp]: B+(**)
• Bob Bert: Beach Bongo Bloodbath (2026, Bar/None): [sp]: A-
• Dave Burrell & David Liebman: Reservoir (2026, Bespoke Jazz): [sp]: B+(**)
• Jonas Cambien/Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard/Dag Erik Knedal Andersen: The Ear Behind the Airport (2025 [2026], Motvind): [bc]: B+(***)
• The Paul Carlon Trio: Between Us Three (2024-25 [2026], TRRcollective): [sp]: A-
• John Clayton: The Two-o Duo Project (2026, ArtistShare): [sp]: B+(**)
• Fathers: Fathers (2026, Blue Note): [sp]: B
• Flöjter: Brest Blow (2025 [2026], Utech/Gigantonium): [bc]: B+(**)
• Flöjter: Paris Blow (2025 [2026], Utech/Gigantonium): [bc]: B+(***)
• Carlos Henríquez: Monk Con Clave (2026, self-released): [sp]: B+(**)
• Marquis Hill: (Beautifulism) Sweet Surrender (2026, Black Unlimited): [sp]: B
• Julia Hülsmann Octet: While I Was Away (2023 [2026], ECM): [sp]: B+(**)
• Hannah Marks: Feed the Fire (2025 [2026], Endectomorph Music): [sp]: B+(***)
• Pedrito Martínez/Antonio Sánchez/Michael League: Elipsis (2026, GroundUP Music): [sp]: B+(**)
• Orchestre National De Jazz: With Carla (2025 [2026], ONJ): [bc]: B+(**)
• Ivo Perelman/Elliot Sharp/Cyro Baptista: Triacontagon (2024 [2026], Defkaz): [bc]: A-
• Susana Santos Silva/Vasco Trilla: Mushin (2024 [2026], Defkaz): [bc]: B+(*)
• Elias Stemeseder/Thomas Morgan: Io Pur Respiro (2024 [2026], Squama): [sp]: B+(***)
• Steve Swallow: Winter Songs (2024 [2026], ECM): [sp]: B+(***)
• Micah Thomas: Lucid (2026, Birdwatcher): [sp]: B+(**)
• Ben Wolfe: Any Time After Now (2025 [2026], Resident Arts): [sp]: B+(*)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• John Butcher: Anyway, I Was (2008-25 [2026], Relative Pitch): [sp]: B+(**)
• Miles Davis: Miles '56: The Prestige Recordings (1956 [2026], Craft): [sp]: A-
• Miles Davis: Miles '55: The Prestige Recordings (1955 [2025], Craft): [sp]: B+(**)
• Ellery Eskelin: Setting the Standard (1988 [2026], Prime Source): [bc]: B+(***)
• Medeski Martin & Wood: Tonic (1999 [2026], Blue Note): [sp]: B+(**)
• Big John Patton: Got a Good Thing Goin' (1966 [2026], Blue Note): [sp]: B+(**)
• Hans Reichel: Dalbergia Retusa (1973-88 [2026], Black Truffle): [bc]: A-
• Mal Waldron/Steve Lacy: Play Monk, Ellington & Strayhorn: Live at Yoshi's 1994 (1994 [2026], Elemental Music): [sp]: B+(***)

Old music:

• Ellery Eskelin/Sylvie Courvoisier: Every So Often (2008 [2020], Prime Source): [bc]: B+(**)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Nicki Adams and Michael Eaton Featuring Francisco Mela: Arrival (J-man) [09-10]
• Barcelona Art Orchestra & Miguel Zenón: Expressions: Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra (Miel Music) [06-26]
• Satoko Fujii Orchestra Kobe: After the Storm (Libra) [08-07]
• Oliver-Smith Incomparables: Stomp Your Stuff (Turtle Bay) [08-28]
• Sarah Pillow: Wanderer (Buckyball) [10-05]
• Terry Waldo & the Gotham City Band: Treasury Volume 3 (Turtle Bay) [06-05]
• Miguel Zenón & Luis Perdomo: El Arte Del Bolero Vol. 3 (Miel Music) [08-28]

Daily Log

Slept OK. Came down at 10:45. I'm expecting mail with the links to the poll articles. I did get to the end of the charts for the jazz reviews pieces. I didn't add the uncharted records. I made most of the necessary changes to the 26my website pages, including turning the lock off and taking down the "temporary" messages. All that leaves is adding links to the Arts Fuse URLs.

I spoke too soon there. The articles were ready. Marx changed one title, which was fine. He also changed subtitles and replaced my opening cross-references notes with his "Editor's Notes." I adopted them. I further rearranged the index page. Then I updated the website. We're live now. I need to chill a bit, work on the jigsaw, eat breakfast, then get going again. I'll send out notices when I restart the day.

Email (39 messages at 12:43 PM):

• Substack matters: +1 like (old piece).
• Amazon accepted my review of a Keywing Phone Camera Lens Set. I gave it 1 star, noting: "I couldn't use this. The clip is too short to fit on a camera that has a case. I'm only able to see a partial, rounded image, with the corners blacked out. I'm not seeing as much lens effect as I had hoped for, but that may be because the fit is . . ."
• Earthquake: M4.4 Texas Panhandle region. I set up this alert some years ago, when Oklahoma was producing a lot of small earthquakes, some felt here in Wichita. It's been quite a while since I've seen any reports here, although my other alert, for 7.0+ earthquakes worldwide, produces mail almost daily. This one is for 197 miles west of Oklahoma City, so pretty far from here. Got a second one, M5.1, same area.
• Tom Engelhardt: SockHer for Donald Trump: Living in a Trumpublican World
• A new collection of John Prine "alternate versions, acoustic performances & five previously unreleased John Prine songs," coming out Oct. 9, on 30th anniversary of Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings.
• Project Syndicate
• Cezary L Lerski tells me that Not Two Records will be revived by him, now based in California.

Poll matters (I shouldn't bury this under email, but it involves some email):

• I made some revisions to the website index page, to better feature the Arts Fuse links, and move my own crap (including the essay drafts) down near the notes section. I unlocked the website, and updated it. I notified Arts Fuse this was done, so let the publicity begin.
• I wrote to jpadmin, asking them to check the website for any errors, etc.
• I wrote to jazzpoll, letting the critics know that the poll has been published. I asked them to review their ballots. I can update the note lines without wrecking anything. I asked them to publicize the poll.
• I wrote to jpmedia, telling them that the poll is up, and asking for their help in promoting it.
• I posted to Bluesky, X, and Facebook, linking to the intro article on Arts Fuse.
• Matt Fripp asked about an interview for Jazzfuel. I said ok, but asked how it would work.
• Larry Hollis asked where his ballot was. I've asked him the same thing, several times.
• I replied to a 7/17 mail from Paul Medrano about the poll future, advising him that I'll get back to him in 1-2 weeks.
• I got complimentary poll email from: George Varga, Brooks Geiken, Russell Perry, Steve Erickson. Also a complaint from Larry Hollis (where's my ballot?, where, indeed?).

By the way, Matt Merewitz wrote this on Facebook:

I spent over an hour on the phone last weekend with Tom Hull, who selflessly continues to carry on the legacy of Francis Davis. Davis, who was a friend of mine from my Philly/Ars Nova Workshop days advocated for the place of the critic in society. I think the jazz critic is possibly the most maligned figure in the jazz ecosystem, aside from the musician themselves, who writes for the least amount of money or appreciation and is constantly subject to vicious attacks by everyone in the jazz firmament. And yet they overwhelmingly do it for the love of the art form. Yet, I feel like we need critics now more than ever to wade through all the slop and give us some context. Today The Arts Fuse (a Boston-based culture website) published the results of The Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics at Mid-Year; the ballots of a whopping 127 critics worldwide. There, Tom wrote three essays there: an introduction, one on New Jazz Albums chart, and one on archival discoveries, which Francis called "Rara Avis." I am proud of my clients but I am more proud of this community which sticks together and continues to do something to spread the good word on new jazz / BAM / improvised / creative music recordings.

When I saw that, 24m after posting, that had 10 likes and 6 comments (2 were links from Matt). One negative comment, by James Rozzi:

Critics should leave be that which they don't care for and emphasize only that which they deem worthy of ears. There's more than enough music out there. And polls are bullshit.

I replied:

Working backwards: I judge a poll by how much new music I discover by reading it, often way down in the fine print. For this poll, for me, that number is already close to 100. If you never note the music you hear and don't like, readers will have little basis to understand what you do like. You're asking reviewers to be publicists. Don't we already have more hype than we can handle? As for real criticism, which I only very rarely do, it shouldn't matter whether you like or dislike what you're writing about. It should only matter what insights you gain.

Richard Baker wrote:

I guess I've gotten old and crusty, but I just don't hear enough new stuff that excites me. I also feel like it gives the readers of false impression when they want you to vote for 10 new records but only three that are previously unissued older recordings or re-issues. There are years when there are five great releases of previously unissued material that are better than almost any new record. I'm supposed to ignore a really great Sonny Rollins record from the 1960s when there might not be any new records that are anything like as good?

Crusty, as I said. That being the case, I just decided not to vote in the polls anymore.

I replied:

We're asking for up to 5 reissue/archival votes, not 3 (as Francis Davis originally designed). I'm also not enforcing a strict division between the categories, so if you want to slip an extra Sonny Rollins album off as new, I'll probably allow it (and may even total the vote as old -- I explain this stuff in great detail on the site). Part of the reason I increased the limit from 3 to 5 was due to complaints like yours. But many voters don't use the extra slots, or indeed any slots for old music. The ratio of new to old albums is over 3-to-1, even though the ratio of vote slots is just 2-to-1. I'm pretty sure that nobody who voted for less than 10 new music albums used all 5 slots for old music. (The closest was 6-4.) The other fallacy here is that we're comparing old and new music. Both categories are comparing records, which include music, packaging, and for rara avis especially, other intangibles (like surprise, or nostalgia). Keeping them in separate categories tries to avoid old vs. new squabbles.

Started working on a Substack post, about the poll. Kind of a rush job, but I sent it out at 2:15 AM. I felt like it was just something I should try to do.

Daily Log

Woke up with less than 4 hours sleep. Read some, about robots. Tried again. Made the machine happy with 6+ hours. Came down at 11:15. I sent all three essays in last night, so Marx is working on them. I expect they will go up today, but no email as yet. I need to finish compiling my reviews, then fix up some website issues to unlock the results. Then I need to take a stab at redesigning the top level. After that I want to write up a Substack post based on the Agha/Malley book, which is due back at the library on Friday. Forecast is for a hot week. Will be nice to get a break from thinking about the poll.

Email (12 messages at 11:28):

• OR Books: Paul Prescod, Against Black Nationalism: Garvey, Randolph, and the Makings of a Black Movement.

Daily Log

Woke up around 8:30. Read some, but still tired, so I went back to sleep, and didn't make up until almost noon. I finally remembered that I didn't put the garbage dumpster out to the curb, so we probably missed a week. They usually pick it up shortly before noon, so just on the off chance, I put it out. Hot today. Should top 100F. I updated website with near-finished essays last night. I figured I should wait until I got up to start sending them in (although in theory Marx should be able to see them on the website). I expected to get an earlier start, but here we are, 12:17 PM. Still have breakfast before I start. Scanning ahead in email, I don't see anything, other than Van Wyck's latest proofreading. So (I guess) no rush. I woke up thinking I should have written more about the music, but too late for that. Look it up.

Email (30 messages):

• Laura and Nathan Van Wyck sent in edits to the critics piece. I've made corrections. It is the first one I will deliver this afternoon. Rob Shepherd also sent in a correction to New Notes.
• Wichita Public Library: Two books not renewed, due July 24. I still meant to do another post (maybe two) based on Hussein Agha & Robert Malley, so I need to get cracking on that. Python Automation for Dummies remains a future project. The Hawaiian cookbook is not due yet. I don't know when I'll get around to using it. I may just buy a copy for future reference.
• Substack: +2 new subscribers (Dylan Hicks); comment from Mike Poage.
• Tom Engelhardt: It's Getting Hot, Hot, Hot! Donald Trump Is the Human Equivalent of an Atomic Bomb

Daily Log

Woke up at 6:38 AM. I had a little more than 5 hours of sleep, and doubted I'd be able to go back to sleep, so I came downstairs. Carrie was already up, having breakfast. They're planning on leaving by 10, so was good to get a chance to talk. Going to be a long day.

Email (18 messages at 8:30, some left over from yesterday):

• Project Syndicate: Letting Russia Burn (Nina L Krushcheva argues that Putin would sooner accept widespread pain at home than admit defeat in Ukraine); What Inequality Does to Electoral Democracy (Harold James); Oil Shocks Are No Longer Shocking (Nouriel Roubini); Governments Should Govern AI, Not Own it (actually, nobody should own it); How Tech Lords Hacked the Firm (Quinn Slobodian); Subsidies Do Not Explain China's Competetiveness (Kai Guo).
• Semipop Life: starts with B+, then A- for Courtney Barnett (no surprise), A for Mara Calder (surprise, but I probably got that ball rolling), and A+ for Emperor X (huh?).
• Substack stuff: +3 new subscriber (incl. Robert Nagle, "idiotprogrammer"); +2 likes (various pieces, some old).
• My dinner plate pic. I posted it on Facebook.

I took a nap about 3PM. Machine registered 56 minutes. Woke up from a dream that obviously couldn't have been anything else. Up to 75 pages in I Am Not a Robot. Earlier today I corrected the Old Jazz piece, and I read and edited what I'll call the first half of the Critics piece. Now to write the second half. Then I need to go back and split the Notes out of the Old and New pieces, so I can mail them in.

Daily Log

Worked to 2AM last night. Laura wanted to finish the jigsaw, so she skipped TV, so I could work. I baked the ribs: 2.5 hours at 250F, still wrapped in foil, in the refrigerator. I made the tiramisu (except no chocolate garnish yet), and the gluten-free brownies, so dessert is set. I marinated the chicken wings. I didn't have any lime, and used up the rest of my bottled juice. I should have more limes today for basting, so I asked Matt to pick up some. (Just heard that he did.) Made the cucumber-yogurt. First thing I need to do today is to pop the sweet potatoes into the oven. Then I need to do the other marinades (swordfish, shrimp), and whatever the ground lamb needs. After that, I'm just planning two salads: horiatiki, and an Ottolenghi based on baby spinach. Those are just throwing things into bowls, then mixing up a dressing. Oh, we're also doing Turkish eggplant, so I'll cut two eggplants into rounds, which Matt can grill, probably before he gets into the meats. I'll top them with a tomato sauce and yogurt, so I'll need to prep all that. Aside from the sweet potatoes, the only real cooking for me today is the tomato sauce. Seems manageable, but I'm feeling quite a bit of pain right now.

No writing today. Email (7 messages at 11:45, nothing I need to look at). I didn't get back to the computer until 10:40 PM. Carrie helped with dinner prep, so we got everything done on our end pretty efficiently. My main glitch was that I couldn't find any tahini, so I had to scratch the yogurt-tahini sauce (meant for the kofte). I did make a yogurt-dill sauce for the shrimp which worked nicely. Big problem was with the grill. I had warned Matt that the gas valve had to be opened slowly, but he evidently tripped the safety valve in the regulator, so the gas flow was limited to the extent of being useless. First thing was for him to grill the eggplant. He had gotten it to the point where it looked cooked, but it had taken an alarmingly long time, and he had a lot of meat left to go. I shut the gas down, then restarted it, opening it slowly. That worked, but it also leaked gas out the side of the regulator valve. (We could hear the leak, and also feel it, but it seemed to be providing adequate gas to the burners.) I tried wrapping tape around the regulator, hoping to slow the leak. The grill heated up, and Matt was able to grill everything. (There was a lot, and it took a long time.) Clearly I need to replace the regulator. Notes on dinner below.

• HP Print Service Plugin: Important Notice: Our Terms and Conditions have changed: Help us improve your Print Service Plugin experience by sharing your app usage data with us through Google Analytics. For more information, view . . . Two check boxes: Send usage data vis Google Analytics (optional); Accept the HP End User License Agreement, which evidently isn't optional, as the only thing I can do after that is click on "Start," which is something I don't want to do. When I click on Start without checking the box, it does nothing.

Plan for the dinner was to do a mixed Mediterranean grill, with a range of dishes from the grill. I don't particularly like grilling, so when I get a chance to assign someone else to the grill, I'd like to take advantage. Today's menu was:

• Grilled chicken wings: Iranian recipe, marinated overnight in saffron, onions, lime juice, some yogurt; while grilling, baste them with a lime-butter mix)
• Grilled swordfish: Turkish recipe, marinated in lemon, onion, paprika; goes with a lemon sauce, which I added to bowl after grilling.
• Baby back pork ribs: Tuscan recipe, rubbed and baked 2.5 hours at 250F, then finished on grill, with a balsamic-honey glaze.
• Grilled shrimp: Greek recipe, marinated with a lot of paprika; served with a yogurt-dill sauce.
• Grilled kofte: From the ATK Mediterrean cookbook, using ground lamb, pine nuts, onion, and spices. Should have a yogurt-tahini sauce, but I couldn't find my tahini, so didn't make the sauce (the yogurt-dill worked nice).
• Grilled eggplant with tomato sauce and garlic-yogurt: Turkish recipe. Eggplant turned out to be very tough due to the low temp grill. Looked terrific, but very disappointing.
• Roasted sweet potatoes with dates, scallions, and balsamic glaze: Ottolenghi recipe.
• Horiatiki: Greek chopped salad.
• Baby spinach salad: Ottolengthi recipe, with toasted pita and almonds, dates, onion.
• Mast Va Khiar: Iranian cucumber-yogurt variation, with scallions, mint, golden raisins, and black walnuts.
• Tiramisu: Recipe uses a jelly roll cake instead of ladyfingers.
• Brownies: Gluten-free recipe uses almond flour.

Daily Log

Ok, but not great, sleep. Woke up around 8:30, and never really made it back to sleep. Came down shortly after 10. Thinking more about Sunday dinner than the poll. I do have a lot of writing left today, as well as putting together a shopping list, shopping, and this evening doing my prep, which will mostly involve marinades and dessert. Matt requested the Mediterranean grill option, and preferred ground lamb to chunks. I wish I had some of those wide, flat skewers. I may stop by Ace and check out their BBQ gear, before hitting the grocery store(s). Aside from the lamb, we'll do chicken wings, swordfish (if I have it; I have some), not sure what else. Thought of shrimp, and I see a Greek grilled shrimp that looks good. Also thought of wrapping fish filets in grape leaves. I'm thinking I'll do the Ottolenghi roasted sweet potatoes. We'll also have the horiatiki, and mast va khiar. Not sure how much more we need. Maybe grill eggplant, and top it with something. Maybe some greens? For dessert, they opted for the tiramisu. Not my first choice, but doable. Maybe I'll also do some gluten-free brownies. I doubt if I'll have a definitive shopping list, so to some extent I'll probably wind up winging it.

Music Week (7:3) went out last night. Regular Music Week should go up today. Fair amount of writing left, but at this stage it's mostly tuning up. I'm reconciled to not turning the essays in until guests leave on Monday. Matt Merewitz called, and we talked for an hour. He has lots of ideas about the possible future of the poll. As I've been thinking about future direction, I need to follow up with him. I also have a letter from Paul Medrano that I don't think I logged, but is basically a business plan for moving forward.

Email (11 messages at 4:30):

• I processed Nathan Van Wyck's notes on the New Jazz piece. Laura also sent me something, catching the first two.
• Music Week (7:3): 1 like.
• TomDispatch: Nick Turse: The United States of Betrayal: Turning on our allies has always been the American way.
• Bill Marx wrote: thinks the New Jazz essay is "solid," but too long, so wants to cut the notes out. I offered to move them to a separate file on my server. I sent him Rara Avis and the "Warming Up a Riff" fragment. I asked whether the "My Ballot" section should also be cut. I told him I'm done for the weekend, but will get back to work after my guests leave on Monday, and send him copy in later that day or Tuesday.

Music Week

Expanded blog post, July archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 50 albums, 10 A-list

Music: Current count 46299 [46249] rated (+50), 10 [15] unrated (-5).

New records reviewed this week:

• Ricky Alexander: Ragology (2025 [2026], Turtle Bay): [sp]: B+(***)
• Zoh Amba: Eyes Full (2026, Matador): [sp]: A-
• Florian Arbenz Feat. Bill Frisell/Greg Osby: Quiet Lights (2025 [2026], Hammer/Conversation Lab): [sp]: B+(***)
• Ran Blake & Dominique Eade: Roots & Byways (2023 [2026], Sunnyside): [cd]: B+(***)
• Cheer-Accident: Your Smile/The Song Is Over (2026, Cuneiform): [dl]: B
• Cheer-Accident: CheerAx Basement, Chicago 4/2/22 // Reggie's Chicago 9/26/23 (2022-23 [2026], Cuneiform): [dl]: B+(*)
• Alexander Claffy: Alive in Philadelphia Vol. 1: At Chris' Jazz Cafe (2025 [2026], Cellar): [sp]: B+(**)
• Mike Clark: Kuon Ganjo (Time Without Beginning) (2025 [2026], Wide Hive): [cd]: B+(**) [08-07]
• Paul Cosentino's Boilermaker Jazz Band: Everything Is Jumpin' (2025, self-released): [sp]: B+(**)
• Dominique Cravic Et Les Primitifs Du Futur: Les Crimes Du Musette (2026, Buda Musique): [sp]: B+(***)
• Marilyn Crispell/Anders Jormin: Memento (2025 [2026], ECM): [sp]: B+(*)
• Caroline Davis: Fallows (2025 [2026], Ropeadope): [bc]: A-
• Adam De Lucia: The Man Who Would Be King (2025 [2026], self-released): [cd]: B [08-07]
• E'DU & Judgitzu: Nuku (2026, Nyege Nyege Tapes): [bc]: B+(**)
• Maria Grand: Both Sides (2026, Lilaila): [bc]: B+(***)
• Miho Hazama: Frames (2025 [2026], Edition): [sp]: B+(**)
• Gerry Hemingway: Live at Bau 4 (2025 [2026], Hat Hut): [cd]: A-
• House of the Black Gardenia: Mazurka in Jazz (2026, HOTGB): [sp]: A-
• I Compani: Basta! 7-Tet [The Last Concerts 2025] (2025 [2026], I Compani): [sp]: B+(**)
• I Compani: Basta! Extended [The Last Concerts 2025] (2025 [2026], I Compani): [sp]: B+(***)
• Randy Ingram: Sound Within: A Celebration of Bill Evans (2025 [2026], Chill Tone): [cd]: B+(***)
• Mike Khoury: For Hind Rajab (2025 [2026], Relative Pitch): [sp]: A-
• Andrew Kim: Lineage (2025 [2026], Origin) [07-24]
• Kiri Ra!: Nen (2026, We Jazz): [sp]: B+(**)
• Knats: A Great Day in Newcastle (2026, Gearbox): [sp]: B
• Elan Mehler: Renee Said (2025 [2026], Newvelle): [sp]: B+(**)
• Sei Miguel: Viva! (O Carro De Fogo De Sei Miguel) (2023 [2026], Clean Feed): [sp]: B+(***)
• Nils Petter Molvær: Be Quiet (2026, Edition): [sp]: B
• Nolatet: Somethin' to Relax With (2025 [2026], Royal Potato Family): [sp]: B+(*)
• Onilu: Jakuta's Dance (2025 [2026], 577): [dl]: B+(***)
• Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/William Parker/Bobby Kapp: Synesthesia (2024 [2026], Defkaz): [sp]: B+(***)
• Brooks Prumo Orchestra: Good Bait (2025 [2026], self-released): [sp]: B+(*)
• Olivia Rodrigo: You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love (2026, Geffen): [sp]: A-
• Armand Sangalang: Waypoints (2025 [2026], Calligram): [sp]: B+(***) [08-07]
• Helen Sung Big Band: Oracles (2024 [2026], Sunnyside): [sp]: B+(*)
• Tyler "Twerk" Thomson: Plays in Bands (2026, self-released): [bc]: A-
• Tierra Whack: Whack's Museum (2026, Interscope): [sp]: B+(***)
• Håvard Wiik/Antonio Borghini/Tim Daisy: One Brief Cure (2025 [2026], Relay): [bc]: B+(***)
• Wrens: Live @ Nublu (2025 [2026], Out of Your Head): [os]: B+(***)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers: Jazz Messengers '70 (1970 [2026], Good Time): [sp]: B+(**)
• Art Blakey & the New Jazz Messengers: Buttercorn Lady (1966 [2026], Elemental Music): [sp]: B+(*)
• Dollar Brand/Don Cherry/Carlos Ward: The Third World-Underground (1972 [2026], Wewantsounds): [sp]: B+(**)
• Mick Goodrick/Fred Hersch: Feebles, Fables and Ferns (1988 [2026], ECM): [sp]: B+(**)
• Thelonious Monk: Live in Paris, 1967: Volume One (1967 [2026], Rhythm-a-Ning): [sp]: B+(**)
• Jimmy Scott: Falling in Love Is Wonderful (1963 [2026], Tangerine): [sp]: B+(*)
• Sun Ra: East Two + 7 (1972-73 [2026], Cosmic Myth): [sp]: B+(**)
• McCoy Tyner: Extensions (1970 [2026], Blue Note): [sp]: A-
• McCoy Tyner: Asante (1970 [2026], Blue Note): [sp]: B+(**)
• McCoy Tyner: The Seeker: Live at Umbria Jazz Festival (1993 [2026, Red): [sp]: A-

Old music:

• House of the Black Gardenia: The New Lowdown (2020, HOTGB): [bc]: B+(***)
• L'Afrique Danse No. 1 (1965-68 [1969], African): [sp]: A-
• Twerk Thomson: Plays Unpopular Songs (2017, Twerk-O-Phonic): [bc]: B+(**)
• McCoy Tyner: Expansions (1968 [1969], Blue Note): [sp]: B+(**)

Limited Sampling: Records I played parts of, but not enough to grade: -- means no interest, - not bad but not a prospect, + some chance, ++ likely prospect.

• Art Ensemble of Chicago: People in Sorrow (1969 [2026], Play Loud!): [bc] (4 snippets: 8:14): ++
• Art Ensemble of Chicago: Les Stances à Sophie (1970 [2023], Play Loud!): [bc] (8 snippets: 5:01): ++
• Jason Moran: Plays Duke Ellington (2026, Yes): [bc]: +

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Gerry Hemingway: Live at Bau 4 (Hat Hut) [04-24]

Daily Log

Difficult night sleeping. At one point I thought I heard Laura saying, "your mask is off." The mask wasn't, but the tube had been disconnected, and the machine was turned off. I got up at 6, and read some. Hopefully I'll be done with AI Snake Oil today or tomorrow, and can move on to the next AI book in the stack of four. I did get quite a bit of writing done yesterday. In my New Jazz piece, I advanced the notes down through the top 20. Next up is Jason Moran (21, 42). Outline has 10 more names, of which Virginia MacDonald is already written (about debut albums). There may be a couple more when I review. But I expect to get through that list today, leaving me tomorrow to clean up, before Matt & Carrie arrive on Sunday. I wrote Matt a letter about food. We should talk today, so I can start to make plans. I'm looking for him to run the grill, while I do the sides. Options are: American, Middle Eastern, Hawaiian. We've done a lot of Middle Eastern in the past. I also did a birthday dinner of hamburgers, although American can extend somewhat beyond that. I haven't done anything Hawaiian, but I have a cookbook from the library that is mostly grilled dishes, so that's an option if we want to do something totally new. Also need to decide on dessert. I'm looking for something simple, with kid appeal (they have two, although one's a teen now). Looking forward to this much more than I am writing, but hopefully this weekend will be one coup after another. Playing Adam O'Farrill to start the day. Sounding really good.

I ran the cutoff for Music Week last night. I should try to get it out, at least on Substack, tonight.

Email (40 messages, doesn't appear to be anything on the poll):

• Cadence Magazine Newsletter
• Substack: +1 subscriber

Daily Log

Woke up after 10, clocking 6 hours sleep for the first time in nearly a week. Essays are coming along, but still lots more to do. I posted an update last night. Doesn't look like I'm getting any reaction. I'm also thinking about the Matt & Carrie visit on Sunday. Need to plan food. I'm assuming I'll be done with the essays by then, although they won't be published until early next week. I don't expect any distractions today. I'll hold off on Music Week a bit longer. Playing Meg Okura to start. Played Sorey and Reid yesterday. It's quite possible that I'm not so very impressed with jazz this year.

Email (25 messages):

• My jpadmin update post. No reaction.
• Tom Engelhardt: America's Imperial Wars, Then and Now.
• All About Jazz: They've released their "All-Star Break" roundup of "Best Jazz Albums 2026." No time right now, but eventually I will check this out, and (like Santa Claus) make notes of who's been naughty and who's been nice (those we invited who voted in our poll, vs. those invited who didn't; the third group are those we didn't invite, mostly for lack of email addresses).
• William Shatner debuts new metal band at Riot Fest 2026. The band is called the "*uckers." Shatner quote: "I've always believed that music, like space, is about exploration."
• Whitewashed History: TGreading on the myth of the Gadsden Flag.
• Tom Carson: Frankenride 8. TL;DR, but strategy seems to be to expose a few sections to non-paying subscribers. Perhaps when I have nothing more pressing.
• Recommendations from your Substacks: From Cadence, actually. May be worth checking out.
• Michael Steinman: The Four Leaf Clover Jazz Band.
• Cadence interview with Lotte Lenker, have to do something to "claim free article."
• DownBeat: 2026 Critics Poll Edition: Mary Halvorson is artist of the year, Patricia Brennan album of the year, Adam O'Farrill as rising star artist/trumpeter/arranger, Sheila Jordan to Hall of Fame, also Jaki Byard. 226 critics ("second highest in poll (and jazz) history!").

Daily Log

Slept just under six hours. Came down at 10:40. Thought I should play some of my poll records. Couldn't find Tyshawn Sorey in the bin, but it was on the desk. Also pulled out Tomeka Reid, Adam O'Farrill, Meg Okura, and Melford/Fujii. Laura has a lunch date with a Blue Cedar Press author at 12:30, so I'll probably tag along. Other than that, I just need to keep writing. I got into the notes section of the rara avis essay yesterday, and piled up quite a few words. I still need to do something like that for new jazz albums. Then add the critics list to that piece, along with any further thoughts.

Back from lunch. Went to Larkspur. Good calimari appetizer. Fair gyro sandwich, with so-so pasta salad (but others got the fries, which were good). They were meeting with a prospective author, first name Miguel, don't recall the surname, is writing a book on Mexican immigrant experience. Lives in DC, but has family in Wichita, and knows Anita. Gretchen likes the book. Laura hasn't read it yet. But he's keen for Blue Cedar Press to publish it, so the meeting was productive. I didn't get anything done before lunch, so I'm starting all over again.

Email (45 messages at 3:00 PM):

• OR Books says Mike Wallace has died (1942-2026). I think of him (not the broadcaster) as a historian of Mexico, but evidently his Gotham series is a bigger deal. OR Books is pushing a book he co-wrote with his wife, Mexican novelist Carmen Boullosa: A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the "Mexican Drug War".
• Whitewashed History: We Don't Dip the Stars & Stripes: and other lessons from a Great American named Ralph Rose.
• Your Weekly Stack: I Wanted to be Anthony Bourdain — until I met him (Cailey Rizzo); The Morning Leonard Cohen Explained Antisemitism (Steven Karras); Paul Krugman is Wrong about Socialism and Social Democracy (John B Judis); On Tricia Rose, Greg Tate, and Black Cultural Genius (Robin DG Kelley); Have You Ever Been in a Room Full of Zionists Attacking Jason Stanley? I Have. (Jon Reynolds).

Mar 2001